Comparative assessment of acoustic properties of talking drums made from hourglass shell from different geometric shapes of Gmelina arborea (Roxb.) wood

This paper endeavoured to assess the acoustic properties of talking drums made from hourglass shells of different geometric shapes out of Gmelina arborea wood with the view of assessing and improving the acoustic properties of the talking drum. Talking drums from 6 different geometric shapes were manufactured from base wood of G. arborea. The lowest and highest means were 172.10 and 175.75 HZ for resonance frequency, 43.67 and 46.50 dB for amplitude, 635.00 and 743.33 ms for sound damping time, 0.06 and 0.14 for best timbre harmonic, 0.30 and 0.41 for poorest harmonic, respectively. Conclusively, talking drums made from these hourglass shells compared differently and it was found that hourglass shell making the talking drum and tension on the rope influences the drum's acoustic performance.